Friend,
The youngest child of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. playfully wrestled with another girl in high school and trapped her in a headlock.
The girl fought back. She scratched Bernice King's face and pulled her hair. Bernice wanted to throw a punch, but her parents' nonviolent training kicked in.
"Somebody has to cut off the chain of violence," her mother, Coretta Scott King, would say, reflecting the nonviolent philosophy she and her husband had espoused together.
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"She said it so often that it prevented me from making a serious error as a teenager," recalled Dr. Bernice A. King, whose father was assassinated on April 4, 1968, when she was only 5.
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Today, Bernice King is CEO of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change - also known as The King Center - which is dedicated to educating, inspiring and empowering new generations to carry on King's work.
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That work is urgently needed.
"As we bear witness to the dangerous rhetoric from President Trump that encouraged white nationalists to violently attack the U.S. Capitol, leaving five people dead, we must fully embrace King's message that '[n]onviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals,'" said Tafeni English, director of the Civil Rights Memorial Center, which is operated by the SPLC and includes interpretive exhibits about civil rights martyrs. "Embracing King's message of nonviolent social change is the best way to honor his legacy."
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On Friday, which would have been King's 92nd birthday, the SPLC celebrated the civil rights icon's legacy with an online panel discussion titled "The March Continues: Building Collective Power to Impact Policy and Dismantle Systems of Oppression in 2021 and Beyond."
In an interview with the SPLC, Bernice King reflected on her father's message of nonviolent social change and how it applies today, in light of the racial reckoning sparked by the police killings of Black people including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Sean Reed, Yassin Mohamed, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and so many others.
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That message is clearly outlined in her father's last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
"Although it was written in 1967, I believe it is a blueprint for us today on how to eradicate racial and economic injustice, while also advising us on the need for heart change," King said. "In it, he shares that 'the ultimate answer to the race issue will be when people obey the unenforceable.'"
This "heart change" and the need for higher consciousness will prevent people from hurting each other, even when there is no law in place to stop them.
"As my father said, 'Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless,'" she said. "So we must have both heart change and legislative change."
Black Lives Matter
King would have supported the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition that includes Black Lives Matter, his daughter said.
"My father believed that every human being has value and should be treated with dignity," she said. "He would certainly applaud the assertion that Black lives matter and the passion for aligning reality with the assertion.
"Black Lives Matter is saying, 'Value my personhood. Treat me with respect. Equal respect.' His teachings remind us that we must correct any system, policy or practice that refutes these statements. And, therefore, we must work diligently to perpetuate justice at its best, which he defined as 'love correcting everything that stands against love.'"
Her mother taught what her father called the "beloved community," in which caring and compassion drive policies that support the worldwide elimination of poverty and hunger, and all forms of bigotry and violence.
"With all of this in mind, I believe that my father would not only support those working on behalf of the liberation and empowerment of Black lives but would also seek to foster understanding of nonviolence and attention to the beloved community, not only for participants in the movement, but for those who so vehemently oppose BLM, as well."
The country would not be as focused today on racial injustice, such as police brutality, she said, if not for the energy, commitment and work of Black Lives Matter activists and organizers.
"Whenever I speak about Black Lives Matter or have an opportunity to communicate with BLM leaders personally, I often encourage them to consider my father's quote in their movement - our 'nettlesome task' is to 'discover how to organize our strength into compelling power so that the government cannot elude our demands,'" she said.
"It is my hope that, as we continue the fight for racial justice, the movement around Black lives will grab hold of these words and reflect a more defined and unified agenda with a fine-tuned strategy for achieving that agenda."
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the SPLC
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